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Iconology, Neoplatonism, and the arts in the Renaissance
\"The mid-twentieth century saw a change in paradigms of art history: iconology. The main claim of this novel trend in art history was that renown Renaissance artists (such as Botticelli, Leonardo or Michelangelo) created imaginative syntheses between their art and contemporary cosmology, philosophy, theology and magic. The Neo-Platonism in the books by Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola became widely acknowledged for their lasting influence on art. It thus became common knowledge that Renaissance artists were not exclusively concerned with problems intrinsic to their work, but that their artifacts encompassed a much larger intellectual and cultural horizon. This volume brings together historians - both those concerned with the history of their own discipline and also those whose research is on the art and culture of the Italian Renaissance itself - with historians from a wide variety of specialist fields, in order to engage with the contested field of iconology. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance history, Renaissance studies, historiography, philosophy, theology, gender studies, and literature\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
The Descent of the Soul in the Immanent World: Neoplatonism, Gnosticism and Christianity
The common ground of the monotheist religions is by no means separable from the philosophia perennis, a universal wisdom expressed by many theological and mystical traditions. The descent of the Soul in the world, common to monotheist religions and to spiritual traditions from the East, is also the origin of the European philosophical tradition of idealism. This is briefly expressed as the Soul created the world by moving from Eternity to Time, meaning that one should not seek to explain time separated from the soul. However, the split from pure metaphysics and the dive into mysticism is to be situated in the interpretation of Plato by Neoplatonist authors, imbued with the new values of the Christian religion.
Journal Article
MACHIAVELLI’S PHILOSOPHICAL FICTIONS
Machiavelli, like other Renaissance authors, weaved philosophy into works of fiction, attacking the notion attributed to Plato’s Diotima that love (eros) is philosophy’s partner. Under veiled criticism, presented in four comic texts bound together by the theme of love, Machiavelli delivers his criticism of Diotima’s eros. He joins a long line of astute manipulators, like Numa and Savonarola, who presented difficult ideas to people unlikely to accept them except under cover of divine authority. My essay rests on the expanding body of scholarship on Machiavelli’s neglected literary works.
Journal Article
An Introduction to the Special Issue “The Platonic Tradition, Nature Spirituality, and the Environment”
We can understand Platonism as both a storehouse of resources that can be drawn upon and a living philosophy capable of helping us address the present-day environmental crisis, one of humanity’s most important and pressing challenges. Platonism appears in the collected papers here in philosophical, theological, scientific, and literary contexts, demonstrating both its versatility and its capacity. One of the aims of promoting this avenue of research is to both explore and challenge the traditional characterisations and critiques of the Platonic tradition in relation to nature and ecology. This Special Issue demonstrates how Platonism can serve as a resource for addressing the environmental crisis in a present-day context. Collectively, the wide range of contributions allow us to begin to tackle the task of showing how a Platonically orientated metaphysics can provide an integrative and sustainable framework for conceptualising nature and the place of humans within it, particularly by offering an alternative to subject-centred epistemologies.
Journal Article
Coope, U. (2020). Freedom and responsibility in Neoplatonist thought. Oxford University Press
Book reviewed: Freedom and responsibility in Neoplatonist thought
Journal Article
A Critique of the Neo-Platonist Theory of Moral Value
Divine Command Theory holds that what is morally right is what is commanded by God. This view faces a form of the Euthyphro dilemma: either God commands actions because they are right, in which case moral standards are independent of God, or actions are right because God commands them, in which case morality appears arbitrary. A currently influential response among theistic philosophers draws on a distinction between moral duties and moral values. On this view, duties arise from God’s commands, while values are understood—following a neo-Platonist approach—to be grounded in God’s nature. Proponents of this account appeal to an analogy with the role of the standard metre in the metric system: just as a metre is defined by reference to a paradigmatic length, so goodness is defined by reference to God’s character. On this basis, they argue that the existence of moral value depends on God’s existence, and that moral objectivity requires theism. We argue, however, that moral language cannot be understood as involving God in a structurally analogous way to the standard metre. Moreover, the neo-Platonist account does not provide a successful explanation of the normativity of moral language.
Journal Article
Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority
The people of the late ancient Mediterranean world thought about and encountered gods, angels, demons, heroes, and other spirits on a regular basis. These figures were diverse, ambiguous, and unclassified and were not ascribed any clear or stable moral valence. Whether or not they were helpful or harmful under specific circumstances determined if and what virtues were attributed to them. That all changed in the third century C.E., when a handful of Platonist philosophers-Plotinus, Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus-began to produce competing systematic discourses that ordered the realm of spirits in moral and ontological terms.
InSpiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority, Heidi Marx-Wolf recounts how these Platonist philosophers organized the spirit world into hierarchies, or \"spiritual taxonomies,\" positioning themselves as the high priests of the highest gods in the process. By establishing themselves as experts on sacred, ritual, and doctrinal matters, they were able to fortify their authority, prestige, and reputation. The Platonists were not alone in this enterprise, and it brought them into competition with rivals to their new authority: priests of traditional polytheistic religions and gnostics. Members of these rival groups were also involved in identifying and ordering the realm of spirits and in providing the ritual means for dealing with that realm. Using her lens of spiritual taxonomy to look at these various groups in tandem, Marx-Wolf demonstrates that Platonist philosophers, Christian and non-Christian priests, and gnostics were more interconnected socially, educationally, and intellectually than previously recognized.
eBook
Prophesying the Demise of Egyptian Religion in Late Antiquity: The Perfect Discourse and Antoninus in Canopus
Abstract
When the demise of traditional Egyptian religion took place is much debated. Some scholars have portrayed vibrant cults continuing well beyond the 4th century, embattled by Christianity, whereas others see a marked decline in the late 2nd and early 3rd century, leaving a blank slate for Christianity in the fourth century. The present contribution interprets the apocalyptic prophecy of Hermes Trismegistus in the Perfect Discourse to reflect a priestly insider's perspective of the decline in temple-cult in the early 3rd century, and its projected catastrophic consequences for Egypt and indeed the cosmic order. Yet, despite the general neglect of temple-cult and literacy in the Egyptian priestly scripts, certain temples remained in use. The second part of the article is devoted to the survival and apparent rejuvenation of the temple of Osiris/Serapis in Canopus, in the second half of the 4th century. This case shows that at this late date there were still self-consciously traditionalist devotees of Egyptian gods, though our sources do not permit us to see to what degree their temple-cult corresponded to the old \"standard model.\" The temple's alliance with the non-Egyptian Neoplatonist Antoninus suggests that the image of Egypt as the temple of the world is now championed in the language of Hellenism, and Antoninus updates the now nearly two-centuries-old prophecy of Hermes Trismegistus to predict the fall of the Serapis temples in Alexandria and Canopus after his death. Both the Perfect Discourse and Antoninus are testimonies of a literate elite that saw the great temples as the essence of Egyptian religion, and their demise as the end of Egypt and the world.
Journal Article